Daz Says

Off with his head (30th October 2003)

I'm a bit late on this one, so I'll get on with it quickly... Paul Burrell (former butler to the late Diana, Princess of Wales) - I challenge to a fight, just me and you. Let me know the time and place Mr Burrell, and I'll be there to give you a right royal kicking. The reason is simple... Mr Burrell is scumbag who claims to be making revelations in his new book to show his continued support and loyalty to the late Princess. He claimed on a television interview that "the money isn't important", although he then went on to say that the money would ensure that he and and his family would live the life they wanted to. Isn't that the reason most people want to be rich? And if the money isn't important, presumably he'll be handing it over to one or more of the many charities that Princess Diana held so dear. Yeah, sure... I bet the cheques will be in the post real soon.

To make matters worse, Burrell then said that Princes William and Harry should "grow up". That's brave Mr Burrell, taking a shot at a couple of young men who are bound by royal protocol and who won't (and shouldn't) be seen to snipe back. A reminder of what "grown-up" princes used to do should cheer us all up... perhaps we will see Burrell's head on a spike at Traitor's Gate while the Tower of London ravens peck at the remainder of his corpse.

Also happening this week... Sky Plus was eventually installed, and it's great. Mind you, I've already found that the storage capacity isn't enough (I've scheduled enough stuff over the next two weeks to fill it twice over). This means that Lauren will have to be well-regimented in watching 'The Hoobs' and then deleting the episodes. Personally, I've stored 'Shrek' (must buy the DVD) and 'The Time Machine' (if anyone can explain what Jeremy Irons says at the end, can they let me know).

Pop Idol... the final twelve... well, I got that completely wrong, predicting Marc and Kim would go first. Leon and Kirsty were first to go, and Marc put in a great performance, thus rendering my predictions totally useless. Anyway, I'll leave them be so we can see if I was right about the top five.

And finally, work has started on the 2004 version of dadams.co.uk - now there's something to look forward to, eh?

Two major irritations (20th October 2003)

Number 1 - two weeks ago I heard that the UK-based satellite television company Sky were waiving the £10 extra charge on their Sky Plus service. "That'll do for me" I thought, and considered the £200 I'd have to fork out for the new receiver box a minor irritation for the benefits of the service. So I phoned and arranged installation for 20th October (today). Of course, as with all companies so dedicated to excellent customer service, they couldn't give me a time, only a date... just like NTL, whose broadband service I recently subscribed to. That meant that I had to free up a whole day to work from home (not an easy thing to do). The difference between Sky and NTL is now fairly plain to see from my point of view... NTL actually turned up. The Sky installation company called in the morning and announced that their engineer was sick and wouldn't coming.

The polite and friendly man on the other end of the phone cheerfully explained that I shouldn't worry, because they'd be able to come next week. Something short-circuited in my brain, and I let the hapless git take both barrels of my seething anger. What are these people like? Do they think I've got nothing better to do than hang around the house waiting for them to be good enough to turn up if it fits in with their schedule? Surely they have a contingency plan? I demanded to speak to his manager - he was good enough to ring me back, but he might as well have not bothered. After tearing a strip off him and failing to make him see how unacceptable this was, I decided to speak to the people at Sky rather than their subcontractors.

I can't really say I expected any better, and it didn't get any better. The first lady I spoke to put me on hold while she went to speak to her supervisor - after a few minutes the phone line went dead. She had my details, so surely she'd ring back... wouldn't she? One cup of tea and fifteen minutes later I rang again, and explained the problem yet again. The attitude of the man I spoke to set me off once more... he basically said "bad luck, we'll reschedule it". Again I tried to get him to understand the inconvenience and the difficultly of arranging another day to hang around the house waiting (to no avail). Ironically, the major activity I had scheduled for myself today was to go through an on-line course on customer satisfaction. Every point covered in the course made me consider how Sky had taken the course of action that made life easy for them, not for me.

Number 2 - Microsoft. I don't often tackle issues so close to my profession on this web site, but sometimes us guys from Lotus Software have to state our case. Actually the problem isn't just Microsoft... it's the amount of air-time and credence they get from the media. Last week I read a quote from a Microsoft executive talking about SharePoint Services - the key thought was that people shouldn't be sticking files on network drives, they should be putting them in secure distributed repositories accessible to and available to be searched for by colleagues, teams and workgroups. Now, where have you heard that idea before? The problem is, this chap from Microsoft was talking as if they'd invented that concept. They're late arriving at the party by about ten years.

And then yesterday I was looking at the BBC web site and I saw an article about Microsoft touting "leak-proof e-mail". I don't have to tell you about Microsoft's record on security... it was rubbished by one of their own employees, Mr Brian Valentine. One feature in particular caught my eye... the ability to "prevent recipients from forwarding messages to other users or printing them off". Unbelievable. Lotus Notes has had this feature for so long I can't even remember when we introduced it. A colleague assures me it was pre-Notes 5, so we're talking at least seven years ago as a conservative estimate. Yet the BBC's article is almost a congratulation to Microsoft, crediting them with the invention of this feature and patting them on the back for being a pioneer of e-mail security. How about the truth... how about thirty-nine security patches so far in 2003?

Pop Idol - the final twelve (19th October 2003)

Okay, if you don't like Pop Idol you have my permission to leave now. However, if like me you're hooked once more, stay a while and read my thoughts on the final twelve who go through to the live shows. I'll also make my predictions for how well they'll do, and we can all look back at this after Christmas and laugh at how bad those predictions were.

First, a quick word on the 'Wildcard Show' last night which featured some of the contestants who didn't make the 'final ten' (which was then expanded to become the final twelve). As I will discuss in a minute, I disagreed with some of the winners of the first five heats, but I didn't disagree last night - absolutely the right result. Anyway, let's have a look at the final twelve. I won't post their pictures here, you can see them at the Pop Idol web site. 12th means they go out straight away, 1st means they win - the positions are my predictions, not what I hope will happen.

	Chris - this will be interesting, to see the transformation of a prize nerd into a pop star. He has an incredible voice, but he's the sort of guy who would have been used to having the "kick me" sign stuck to his back at school. Dubbed 'the vicar' because of his nerdy looks, but appears to have made an effort with his image. (5th)
	Michelle - good voice, but not that great... certainly nowhere as good as the hype. I don't want to get into arguments about "what weight is normal?" and all that sort of thing... let's just say she's one of the two largest contestants. And as such, votes come in from people trying to prove a point that Pop Idols don't have to be thin. (3rd)
	Brian - another contestant with a good voice, but he's overwhelmingly boring. There's just nothing interesting about him, even though he has been seen in the clutches of the big-titted brain-doner known as Jordan. He's a bit like a Val Doonigan for the current teenage generation. I can just see Brian's Christmas Special, with the genial Irish lad sitting in a rocking chair in front of the fire wearing a comfy patterned jumper, knocking out a bland ballad. The only trouble is, I can see it this Christmas, not thirty years from now. I have a horrid feeling we'll have to endure him for several weeks before he gets voted out. (6th)
	Kirsty - the most attractive girl left in the competition. Good voice, but not great. In fact, there's nothing really that special about her (but who knows, she might develop and surprise me). (8th)
	Roxanne - the youngest contestant, and she delivered an excellent performance to get into the confirmed ten. Could do well if she gets past the first couple of weeks, especially when you consider the quantum leap of quality between that performance and her original audition. It would be a shame to see her go out early. (7th)
	Marc - oh dear. Marc blubbed like a baby when he won his heat, and I'll never be able to dislodge of the image of his tear-stained face staring at the camera and uttering "Mum" like a big girl's blouse. He has a great voice, but I think the public will find him slightly irritating. I know I do. Also, the fact that he once spent six months in the big house for mugging someone a couple of years ago won't help him. (12th)
	Kim - the other 'larger lady' came second in the week when the standard was appalling. Very good voice, but her over-exuberant facial expressions when singing make me want to switch off. And there's only room for one member of her genre, and Michelle will get those votes. (11th)
	Leon - absolutely bloody awful (see earlier Daz Says entry). What the hell went on the week that we won? Many of the final fifty who were dumped out were a hundred times better than him. A weedy voice, and he'll get found out as the weeks go by and he has to sing a variety of material. But hopefully he won't make it through to the second week. (10th)
	Mark - a terrific voice and worthy qualifier. I'd love to see the Brummie nice-guy do well, but his downfall may be that he is a bit too 'ordinary'. (9th)
	Andy - brother of former-Steps star Lisa Lee-Scott, boyfriend of Liberty X star Michelle Heaton, and himself a former member of boy-band 3SL. Not a very strong voice, but his image and fan-base may see him (undeservedly) go the distance. (1st)
	Sam - he was denied a place in the confirmed ten by Roxanne and Marc, and I think he was robbed. If he'd been in a different heat he probably would have gone straight through. The good news is that he got the judges' vote on the Wildcard Show. A great voice and natural performer at only 17 years of age, he should get better each week. I want him to win, but I think he'll just miss out. Whatever the outcome, I don't think he'll return to his cooking day-job. (2nd)
	Susanne - did well to come third in her heat, but was the star of the Wildcard Show and won the public vote. Her rendition of "I Don't Want To Talk About It" was fantastic - if she releases that as a single it'll be a number one. She may struggle with the variety of the material in the live shows, but she has a unique voice and style, and the public (and judges) love her. I'd love to see her win, but I can't quite see it happening. (4th)

Movie review - 'Finding Nemo' (12th October 2003)

One of the great things about having a kid is that you have a perfectly valid and believable reason for buying kiddy films on DVD or going to see kiddy movies at the cinema. And thus the wife and I looked perfectly at home in a cinema full of kids, even though we were itching to see Pixar's latest offering ourselves. We chose Woking cinema, purveyor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (a huge plus point) - but we won't be going back there until the manager pledges to clean the place occasionally. It was disgustingly dirty with a sticky / crunchy floor, and the screen and seating aren't a patch on Staines' Warner Village cinema.

'Finding Nemo' - the best movie about clown fish this year.

Anyway, how about the film itself? To sum it up in one word, wonderful. Okay, perhaps it's not quite as good as 'Monsters Inc', but what computer-animated movie (apart from 'Ice Age' which was lower in quality in terms of animation, but was far funnier) could compare with that masterpiece? 'Finding Nemo' is a bit of a tear-jerker in places, but very funny, and like 'Monsters Inc' and 'The Emperor's New Groove' (one of my other favourites) they manage to slip in a few adult-orientated gags that just about fly over the top of kids' heads. And a fart gag too, which always scores a few laughter points.

As with it's predecessors, it's a visual feast - perhaps less vibrant than 'Monsters Inc', but stunningly beautiful in the jellyfish and coral reef scenes which display an incredible intricacy of detail. The plot is simple, but the character development is good - you really get to know the variety of creatures that appear during Nemo's dad's journey, and those that inhabit the dentist's fish tank. Watch out for the surf-dude turtle named Crush who gets the best line... "no hurling on the shell dude, I just waxed it". And I loved the blank-looking identical seagulls with their single "mine" refrain. But here I am banging on about plot and character development - it's for kids, and kids aren't bothered all that stuff. They just want to be entertained, and judging by the shrieks of laughter, they were. Of course there is a moral to the tale (about letting go and giving kids the freedom to grow), but it isn't rammed down your throat.

If this review doesn't tempt you to cough up £6 for a ticket, there's one more bonus in store... the supporting short film entitled 'Knick Knack'. It's absolutely hilarious. I just checked the details of the Region 1 DVD which will be available in November... 'Knick Knack' is included. Fantastic.

Celebrity trading (11th October 2003)

I have a new obsession. It's called Celebdaq. Many of you, dear readers, may be familiar with this past-time. I've known about it for a while, but only recently (i.e. two weeks ago) did I sign up and select my celebrity portfolio. The premise of Celebdaq is quite simple... you start off with £10,000 of virtual money, which of course prompts you to say that thing that everyone says when they play Monolopy™ - "wouldn't it be great if this money was real?". Well, it isn't, so get over it. Anyway, with your virtual money you buy 'shares' in celebrities, each of whom are priced differently. Their prices, like real stock, goes up or down depending on how much media attention they get and how much trading is done on them. Getting in early on a celebrity as they start to rise is one way of quickly increasing your worth.

The real kicker comes each Friday when dividends are paid out based on the amount of press coverage the celeb gets during that past week. For example, buy shares in someone like Richard Blackwood (half of you have never heard of him, the other half have but still don't know what he's famous for) and the dividend payout will be somewhere between zip and jack-shit. Invest in Colin Farrell in the same week that he announces that he consumes more nose candy than is good for a young Irish lad and you're quids in. The Beckhams likewise are a safe bet for dividends, as is David Blaine for the duration of his 'starvation in a box' routine.

So, how am I doing? Well, okay. There are several ways of looking at it as far as I concerned. The first is how I'm doing versus Choddo. We started with £10,000 about the same time, although as a long-standing player he's already made his first £1 million and has been 'wealth capped'. For the first week, Choddo beat me by some way in the Celebdaq league, which is measured by the percentage your wealth has increased during the week. This week I'm ahead of him, I think due to smart investment of celebs whose value increased and provided good dividends (thank you Mr Farrell). I mentioned the league, and I've also been charting my progress in that. I started around the 108,000 mark, quickly rose to 10,119th and hit a high at 2,768th place. But clearly my dividend payout wasn't as good as others, as I've since sunk down to 4,149th.

Want a tip for the coming week? All I'm saying is that publicity works, whether it's good or bad. You only have to look at girl band members who get involved in fights in nightclub toilets to know that. But you're too late on that one, whereas I got in on the action early.

Is there something wrong with my hearing? (5th October 2003)

...or perhaps something wrong with the sound on our television? I'm wondering this after the wife and I watched the final of 'Fame Academy' last night, and we couldn't believe the result or the praise heaped upon the eventual winner, Alex Parks. The voting public and the Fame Academy opinion panel clearly heard something different to us... they continually complimented her talent and vocal ability. To me, all the way through the competition (which I haven't seen much of, but enough to form an opinion) her droning monotone voice sounded like a cross between a sea lion with a sore throat and Vic Reeves doing his best (or worst?) club singer voice.

Alex - pretty awful really.

I've also commented several times that many of the final group on Fame Academy wouldn't gave got anywhere near the final fifty of 'Pop Idol'. Indeed, a guy called Terrence who was in the final twenty-five of Fame Academy didn't get into the final one hundred of Pop Idol... which to me says something about the difference in quality of the two competitions. Mind you, he was dismal.

However, I think the producers of Pop Idol have got something wrong in the stages where the final fifty are whittled down to the final ten. The quality of the contestants has not been consistent throughout the four heats so far. Last week there was a very strong field - 17 year old Sam came third with his excellent rendition of 'Walking in Memphis', thus missing out on a place in the final ten. But if he'd been in this week's heat (which displayed far less quality), he would have walked it. This week's winner was Leon, who sounded like R Kelly on helium. Or perhaps there's something wrong with my hearing.

A new look to 'Daz Says' (24th September 2003)

Here's a message for those of you who have regularly visited 'Daz Says' over the past few years, and have laughed at the witty repartee... get out more. But seriously, there's been something about this section that has been bugging me for a while, and was recently pointed out to me... 'Daz Says' was engineered to work with Internet Explorer but not other browsers. While this never particularly bothered me about Netscape Navigator, it was becoming more of a problem for Mozilla browsers - in particular Mozilla Firebird, which has a wonderful ability to kill off pop-up windows (that scourge of the Internet). The old style 'Daz Says' with it's expand / collapse mechanism contained Dynamic HTML not supported by Navigator or Mozilla. That was actually quite easy to solve... I merely changed the Javascript to ensure that for those browsers the initial state was expanded - the collapse action didn't work, but it didn't really matter because at least all readers could see all of the interesting content.

However, for some reason all the formatting was screwed up when viewed with Navigator... it was okay with Mozilla and Internet Explorer, but with Navigator the table layouts were all over the place. Bearing in mind that the expand / collapse was always quite high maintenance, I considered that it was time for a change. I needed something that would be supported by all browsers without engineering loads of exceptions, and something that could easily be navigated to get full enjoyment (are you buying this?).

One other problem remained though. You can see that I make use of tables for positioning of titles and graphics, and I like to use the one pixel-wide black border. However, that was only working in Internet Explorer - Navigator or Mozilla would turn the table borders into grey beveled borders. So I use a cascaded style on a plain table to get the same effect and it works on all browsers.

You may have noticed the neat little pop-up menu that now appears at the top of 'Daz Says' and the archives. This smart new feature is powered by some JavaScript-based techology called Overlib, which was developed by a rather clever man called Erik Bosrup. Long-standing fans of dadams.co.uk (both of you) may remember that Overlib was used in previous incarnations of the site. It's great for providing pop-up help and descriptions of links, but as demonstrated here it can also be used for navigation. Thanks Erik.

One last thing... many people ask me why I don't use Domino given my position within Lotus. There's a simple reason... the nice people at FreeNetName gave me the domain name and the web space for free, in return for me dialling into their service every now and again. And that suits me.

Note: changes have since been made, and much of the above doesn't apply anymore.

Football, and Pop Idol... in that order (21st September 2003)

Sorry ladies, football first. To start with, I will have to concede that Arsenal's 3-0 defeat at the hands of Inter Milan during the week raises no complaints from me... the Italians were the better team on the night, fair and square. Fair, however, is not a word that can be used in conjunction with Arsenal's Premiership rivals, and my 92nd favourite team in the football league, Man Utd.

Martin Keown invites Ruud to a post-match debate.

Today I witnessed one of the worst examples of cheating seen on a British football pitch, which (yet again) resulted in an Arsenal player (inevitably Patrick Vieira) getting sent off. If you missed the incident, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Mr "I cost £18 million and that gets me special treatment", fouled Vieira. When Vieira (now in a heap on the ground three feet from van Nistelrooy) swung his leg at fresh air, van Nistelrooy threw himself away as if Vieira's studs had hit him dead-centre in the testicles. Cue a second red card for Vieira, and he was off. Cue angry scenes, all caused by van Nistelrooy's massive over-reaction to a leg that went nowhere near him. Slight justice then when the cheating bastard hit an undeserved Utd penalty against the cross-bar. And I know the Arsenal players will get in trouble for their after-match antics, but I gained some satisfaction when they surrounded van Nistelrooy and tried to push him over. I wish Vieira's foot had connected with van Nistelrooy's knackers... at least then Vieira's punishment would have been worth it. Personally I'd love to kick the Dutch w*nker's nuts so far up his scrotum that they popped out of his nostrils.

So, call me biased, but Arsenal get a rough ride from the football authorities. This was Vieira's 8th Premiership sending-off, but so many of them were 50-50 decisions that on another day, for another team, would have gone the other way. Like Sol Campbell's alleged elbow last season (cue three match ban) today's decision could have gone the other way... but as always, Man Utd get the rub of the green.

And so to Pop Idol. Just two things to mention. Firstly, there's been a lot made of the talent versus image argument - or more specifically, do larger-than-average people have a place in the competition? Yes, I say. The world is a diverse place, and we should all embrace that and give everyone a chance. Impressionable children (girls in particular) shouldn't be left with the message that to get on in life you have to be the width of a toothpick. However, this ideal can be taken too far, and I think this has been displayed in the first qualifying round. Large Scots lass Michelle was good, but not that good... not good enough to swing the voting by more than 10% of the total when compared to second-placed Chris.

Oh, it's Brian...
Zzzzz zzzz

Secondly, let's discuss the second qualifying round. Very close, and I couldn't decide on who I wanted to get through. But I could decide on who I didn't want to see go through - 'Boring' Brian, the lad from Dublin. Now, I certainly have nothing against the Irish - in fact I have many friends and colleagues of Irish descent, and they're all charming and friendly people. Dublin is a wonderful place. But, Jesus, do they have some sort of blonde boy-band cloning farm over there, rattling off Brian lookalikes / soundalikes? I mean, if one of Westlife was to drop dead tomorrow, they could pop Brian straight into the empty place in the line-up and no-one would notice. Simple equation... Boyzone = Westlife = Brian = very boring.

Post-operative boredom (16th September 2003)

As mentioned earlier on this page (down there a bit), I was recently diagnosed with gall stones. Many people (including me initially) expected the treatment to consist of the offending rocks being disintegrated using sonic waves or laser beams. But the surgeon informed me that the gall bladder doesn't really do much, you can live without it, and once you start producing gall stones you're always going to suffer from them. So, best to whip out the organ in question. This sounded a more educated approach than the 'five-day apple juice diet' - one sufferer claimed he passed a "whole salad-bowl full" as a result. Weighing up the options - removing an organ that I don't really need and that was causing me some trouble, having access to private health-care, and the fact that they do the operation using keyhole surgery - it seemed there was only was only one sensible course of action to agree to. And so I was booked in for 9th September. This was my first operation of any sort, and indeed was to be my first overnight stay in hospital, and that includes being born as I was born at home (okay, I did spend a few night-time hours in Accident & Emergency recently, but that wasn't a real overnight stay). Having an operation is an odd experience, especially when you enter hospital feeling fine and then spend the next week feeling crap. Bizarre.

But the weirdest thing of all was the process of being knocked out and then woken up. The anaesthetist put a needle in the back of my right hand, and I could feel something being injected into the tube. I joked with the anaesthetist as I had a mask placed over my face, and I carried on talking to the nurses. I was aware of a slight fuzzy feeling, and then I said something like "so are you going to put me out for this operation soon?". Then I noticed that the room looked slightly different and I had a drip feeding into my left wrist. I said "you've already done it, haven't you". A nurse replied in the affirmative. Bizarre - it felt as if there'd be no gap in talking to the people around me. I couldn't feel any pain and I thought "well, that was all a bit easy". Yeah, right...

Morphine, as described in the song by Pink, does make you itch... for me it especially affected my nose, which itched like mad for two hours afterwards. Then comes dehydration, nausea, moderate discomfort to the four keyhole openings (the belly button one looked the worse, as if someone had tried to remove it with a corkscrew), and the inability to hoist yourself up into a sitting position because your insides were bruised. I had the added problem that my blood pressure was staying too low (causing me to feel really sick) and thus I had to stay in two nights (rather than one), the first 24 hours with a drip connected. The drip also caused problems - it kept filling my bladder up but it was a real struggle to get up to go to the bathroom because of the immobility. And guess what else... your bladder goes really numb for a couple of days after an operation (well, mine did anyway - apparently it's quite common).

After getting home the internal pain subsided and it became a lot easier to move, but then the 'wounds' swelled and become a lot more bruised and sore. And I've continued to feel sick and bloated and generally shitty all over the weekend. Yesterday Maria was worried because I looked "a bit yellow". Today I went to the doctor as I was concerned about the size of the bruise around one of the wounds. She referred me back to the consultant believing that I'd developed an internal infection (which would account for me feeling so grotty).

Boredom is now the other main problem. Day-time television is woeful. I've watched all my DVDs, and I've nearly finished another Harry Potter book (having seen the first two films and read the fourth book, the sensible thing is of course to read the third installment).

Apart from catching up on e-mail (using the very wonderful Notes 6.5, released on 22nd September 2003 by the way), I also have a challenge for this web site. Ben Poole complained that the 'Daz Says' pages don't support browsers other than Internet Explorer - most notably there's no support for Mozilla Firebird. It's all down to the dynamic HTML. Personally I couldn't give a rat's cock about Netscape Navigator, but I do have growing respect for Mozilla browsers (with Domino Web Access 6.5 being supported on Mozilla for Linux), and Firebird in particular (any browser that terminates the web's worst abomination, pop-up windows, gets the thumbs-up from me). So the challenge is to get all the Daz Says pages working in Mozilla browsers without major re-engineering. I think I've worked out how to do it - Netscape users will still be out of luck but who cares.

Shock report... cloud doesn't hinder Mars sightings (31st August 2003)

The wife is suffering from post-holiday depression, and who can blame her? The weather in Menorca was glorious - perhaps a little too hot at times (I didn't see the temperature on the patio go any lower than 80° F at any time, and it reached 106° at it's peak) - the skies were cloudless apart from a couple of days, and the sea was as warm as I've ever known. The wife and the offspring went there a week early, and by the time I arrived they were already browner than I could ever hope to be. And with my preference for factor 35, I was never going to catch up.

The return to England was pretty much as expected - cloud and rain. But this year, indeed this month, I have a reason to be irritated by the usual weather. Unless you've been living in a dark cave, you might have heard that we're now in a period of history when Mars is closer to Earth than it has been for about 60,000 years - a mere 35 million miles away. News reports claim that "the last time we were this close, Neanderthal man walked the Earth". Well, I have news for you... having just returned from Menorca, I can tell you that Neanderthal man still does walk the Earth, and occasionally goes on holiday. The reason for this proximity between our own planet and Mars is due to a suitable combination of opposition and perihelion... click here to visit the BBC News site for an explanation.

I've been looking at Mars for a couple of months now, and have seen it slowly grow in size and clarity week by week. I was going to take the telescope to Menorca, where the view would have been excellent thanks to the lack of light and atmospheric pollution, and the fact that Mars would be slightly higher in the sky. But in the end it proved to be too difficult and time consuming to pack up the equipment (and there's also the consideration of knocking the mirrors out of alignment). So I looked at Mars shining in the sky with the naked eye and wished I hadn't sold my smaller telescope.

Sod's law says that it was bound to be cloudy on the big day (27th August) - and it was. Not too much of a disaster because the change in the view of Mars would be negligible over the next week, and it was also said that viewing would actually be better through September (with the planet rising earlier and getting higher in the sky). But I wanted to say that I saw it on that night. And amazingly the cloud did clear for about 45 minutes, enough time to rush over to the dark grassy area near our house. The view was better than it had ever been, and I could clearly see the different colours marking the highland and lowland areas, and most striking was the South polar ice cap. See this Mars picture gallery and look at pictures 6 and 8 to see what I'm talking about. Viewing continues to be good - those features were still visible last night and should be for a few weeks to come.

So, what else is new since the last update?

	I read a Harry Potter book. I did intend to borrow the sequel to Simon Scarrow's excellent novel 'Under the Eagle' - the sequel being 'The Eagle's Conquest' - but I forgot to ask Choddo. However he did leave a copy of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' in the villa and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can see what all the fuss is about.
	Following a couple of emergency visits to our local under-funded hospital, I've been diagnosed with gall stones and I'm looking forward to having my gall bladder removed in the near future. I've had to follow a low-fat diet, and I've lost about 6 pounds. If I can get some photos of the offending articles, you'll be able to see them here.
	Pop Idol has started again (hoorah). Nice to see that the quality of auditions didn't disappoint - some were awfully entertaining with the emphasis on the word "awful". Interesting that the BBC reckon that Fame Academy boasts greater talent - so how come one of the final 25 in Fame Academy turned up to the Pop Idol auditions and couldn't get into the final 100?
	The 2003 / 2004 football season has started. Arsenal have won all of their 4 matches so far. Manchester United have not... they lost today to Southampton. Arsenal are 3 points clear at the top of the table. Needless to say, this is a very satisfying state of affairs.

The not-so-jolly green giant (2nd August 2003)

I have to face the facts - this site is never going to become the place to come to get regular movie reviews. Tonight marked my fourth visit to the cinema this year (if I remember rightly) - two have already been listed, and one I won't bother with ('Piglet's Big Movie' was for the benefit of someone a little younger and cuter than me). And so we come to tonight's entertainment... 'Hulk'.

1970's special effects, without the "special".

First, let's dispense with comparisons to the late 70's television series starring the late Bill Bixby. You remember, the one where he roamed the USA with his endless supply of clothes in a rucksack, finding villains in every town causing him to go green twice an episode and telling that reporter that he wouldn't like him when he was angry. Then cue Lou Ferrigno, the bulging muscles covered in green paint and looking like a slightly cheesed-off jelly baby, chucking lightweight props around and snarling at his foes. How did one guy attract so much trouble just by wandering into town? If he'd been such a scientific genius, he should have been working on an expandable fabric - he would have saved a fortune in trousers and shirts. Bill Bixby may have passed on, but Lou still gets to sample the irony by appearing briefly as a security guard in the new movie. Blink and you miss him.

Those purple trousers must really pinch around the groin.

The 2003 version of the Hulk is a different kettle of fish. The green chap in the ripped trousers is now completely computer-generated, and thus he can do a bit more than burst out of cardboard boxes and throw accommodating baddies to the ground. This new CG Hulk is without doubt the star of the show, with the rather lovely Jennifer Connelly coming a close second (but don't tell the wife). The movie itself gets an 8 out of 10 - it takes a while to get going (because of the necessary plot and character development) and has a confusing and, well, crap ending. But when the Hulk himself takes centre-stage and gets really pissed off, the fun starts. The effects are great, and the action scenes are just incredible entertainment. So, all-in-all it gets the Dazza thumbs-up.

One last thing... I think I spotted a continuity error involving a bicycle. Let me know if you spot it too... if you can be bothered. Come back soon for a 'Terminator 3' review, and possibly 'Pirates of the Caribbean' too. But not 'Tomb Raider 2' because that looks as crap as the first one (despite what Choddo thinks about Angelina Jolie in the skin-tight silver jump-suit).

Greetings from Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris (17th July 2003)

Just the five hours before my flight leaves, so time enough to tell you what I think of a certain UK-based airline. Thanks to a cock-up in the agenda for a work event in Paris, I find myself here with time to spare, but I said to myself "hey, head for the airport, they're bound to be able to get you on an earlier flight". Such are the dangers of talking to yourself. Not only did the airline in question refuse point-blank to even consider altering my flight arrangements, they also made me feel less important than something not very important at all. They even said they would let a flight go with an empty seat before they moved outside their strict policy. I'll remember this next time I book a flight and have a choice of carrier. It's almost a shame that, for reasons you'll understand, I'm unprepared to mention them by name. Nice to see an organisation so committed to customer service... I mean, it would be nice to see an organisation so committed to customer service, but on this occasion I haven't.

So, here I sit... my ThinkPad screen is dimmed to the lowest level to conserve the battery for as long as possible. I can't even check in for two hours, so I'm burdened by my laptop rucksack and my three-days-worth of clothes in a big bag. I'm doomed to walk the outer periphery of the terminal like some sad nomad of the e-business era until my get my precious boarding card - only then I can move to the inner sanctum of the terminal, past security and passport control, and through to the duty-free shops.

I have to come back to Paris next week... but I'm glad to say I'm going on the EuroStar. I just hope I'll be glad about it next week. One-and-three-quarter hours to check-in now. Time for a game of Windows Space Cadet Pinball. My high score is 7,262,250. According to the battery meter I have 2 hours and 36 minutes to beat it.

Later that evening... two hours to flight time. I have checked in and I am now free of my big bag. I've paused a game of Pinball having scored 3,857,500 with my first ball - promising. I've done the shops (didn't take long) and grabbed a few minutes to enjoy some of the graffiti in a toilet cubicle (although that wasn't my primary reason for going in there). There were a few contributions from the sort of men I'm glad I don't associate with (not that I have anything against gay men, but joining one in a French toilet cubicle is about as far removed from my idea of fun as you could imagine). There was the opinion of someone who believes that Americans are the world's worst terrorists, and finally the most amusing - "Viva Espana" to which someone had added "shame about the cuisine". I then paid €3.40 for a cup of Pepsi - if you're wondering how much that is, it equates to a rip-off in any currency, but it also complies with the "well, where else are you gonna get a drink from?" law of commerce. Okay, back to the Pinball, 1 hour 55 minutes of battery time remaining...

Two minutes later... dammit, I completely blew it. The remaining two balls were lost in no time, the final score was only 4,163,750. Curse this damn place.

Much, much later... just to finish off a perfect evening, the flight was 45 minutes late leaving, and when I arrived at Heathrow my minicab driver was nowhere to be seen. After failing to contact the cab company, I took a black cab which cost £70.

Do-it-yourself Solar System (30th June 2003)

Thanks to my esteemed friend and colleague John Wylie who started off this topic of conversation in the office today. He told me that in Massachusetts USA, some boffins had placed a scaled representation of our Solar System along the Massachusetts Turnpike (that's the main highway). Starting with the Sun at Boston's South Station, drive for a while and you find Mercury at the Prudential Building, Venus at Fenway Park, and so on. Saturn is all the way out at Framingham (hey, I once went to the shopping mall there). A quick search of the web revealed an interesting page on the subject... but not half as interesting as some of the other pages I found.

One gave instructions for using toilet paper as a method of gauging the distance of the planets from the Sun (use 1.9 sheets to measure the distance to Mercury, 3.6 sheets to Venus, and so on). Another showed someone mapping out the Solar System using balls on spikes in his garden. But by far the best page was the one that allowed you to calculate the distances and sizes of planets given the size of the object you were using as your 'Sun'. Try it out yourself at the 'Build a Solar System' page. But to get you interested, here are some of my findings...

I used a standard CD as my Sun. It's 4.75 inches (12 cm) in diameter. I put that into the page and I got the following results using the calculated scale:

	Mercury, nearest to the Sun, would be 16 feet 5 inches away and only 0.0165 inches in diameter
	Earth would be 42 feet 4 inches away and only 0.0432 inches in diameter
	The largest planet, Jupiter, would be 220 feet from the Sun, and 0.4735 inches in diameter
	Pluto would be over 1,672 feet from the Sun, and a mere 0.007 inches in diameter
	A light year would measure 506.8 miles
	Alpha Centauri (one of the nearest stars to Earth) would be 2,164 miles away (that's about the same distance as Dublin to Moscow)
	Betelgeuse, a red giant star in the constellation of Orion, would be 147 feet in diameter - therefore, if this was situated where our Sun is, it would engulf all the planets as far out as Mars (which would be a little inconvenient for us)

So, there you have it. Something to occupy the long Winter evenings. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a smaller solar system using a £1 coin as the Sun. Dammit, Jupiter is in the kitchen and Saturn is right down the end of the garden. And I won't bother with Alpha Centauri... I can't be bothered to drive to Luxembourg this time of night.